A socio-cultural case study of a primary school system in Venda, South Africa.

[摘要] The present study examines the relationship between the practices of schoolingand classroom teaching and learning on the one hand and learners’ cognitivedevelopment and functioning on the other. The study uses innovative system ofideas in developmental and educational psychology, originally formulated by LevVygotsky to investigate the interrelations between learning, instruction anddevelopment.Carried out in a rapidly changing socio-cultural context of Venda, South Africa,the study examines the realities of schooling practices that exhibit both continuitywith the past practices of society and some profound transformations thattogether lead to a multi-dimensional and a complex picture of cognitivedevelopment in learners. By examining the relations between the culturalpractices of schooling and its socio-historical context on the one hand, and theconsequent psychological process on the other hand, the present study offers anopportunity for exploring processes that may be more opaque in relatively stablesocio-cultural contexts of schooling.The observations on the history of schooling in South Africa in general, and inVenda in particular, support the theoretical formulation that particular practices ofschooling, themselves originating from and continuing larger social-historicalprocesses, represent contexts in which learning and development take place andare shaped. The empirical investigations revealed that even the socio-culturalcontexts of schooling characterized by strong ruptures, such as in South Africa,nonetheless carry on some vestiges of their past practices that affect today’slearning and development of learners.The study concludes, extending the prevailing theoretical formulation, that thesocial and cultural setting of schooling in Venda is multifaceted; manifestingxvi.instances of indigenous practices, the traditions of past missionary practices, aswell as the traditions of the past, apartheid schooling. By taking into accountthese socio-cultural influences, the study provides crucial insights into theregularities of cognitive and conceptual developmental processes taking place inconditions of rapid social change in the course of the schooling of today’schildren in Venda. The study furthers our understanding about the regularities ofthe socio-cultural and historical processes of schooling in conditions of rapidsocial change, and concludes by proposing ways of improving contemporaryeducational practice in South Africa, grounded in sound psychological knowledgeand research about school transformation and classroom teaching and learningimprovement.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand